We have a launch date for Trongate v2. It's Tuesday 6th January.

Between now and then there's a whole lot of rebuilding to do including this website, the Module Market and more. Those who are members of my YouTube channel can come watch it all being built live.

I'm really excited about it! The way Trongate is evolving is truly amazing. Other frameworks are becoming increasingly complex but Trongate is simplifying, speeding up and becoming more efficient than ever before.

I have one question though: is Trongate MX going to be included by default in Trongate V2?

Thank you. Yes. Trongate MX will be included. It's a JavaScript library that is super useful so it will be included - but you're not obligated to use it.

I can also exclusively reveal that some MAJOR architectural decisions have been made.

I'll do a full video explaining the thinking behind all of this. These will be the single biggest changes in the history of the framework. The big newsflash this weekend is that almost EVERYTHING is going to be a module. Templates? It's going to be a module. DB (the database class)? That's going to be a module too. Validation? Module. Image? Module. File? Module.

There's actually going to be hardly anything left that is not a module!

All of this will dramatically reduce the 'engine' size.

TOTAL v1 ENGINE: ~5,530 lines of code
TOTAL v2 ENGINE: ~2,320 lines of code

Yes, this WILL make the framework a little bit faster. However, that's not the main motivation.

There are two motivations here:

1). We have to train people into understanding this whole idea of "a module for everything". I'm always hearing from people who have built (fill in the blank) for the framework and it always involves messing around with the core or doing something weird. I'm on a mission to show people that simple modules can handle anything. By doing that it means that there won't be much to learn. A guy from Japan will be able to quickly write a validation module called 'validation_japan' and BOOM! - Instant form validation with Japanese!

2). The second thing is, by making the engine really small we open up the legitimate prospect of being able to have AI engines easily understand the framework. With a tiny engine size, fully automated, AI driven web development is feasible.

The good news is, nobody is going to be overwhelmed with stuff to learn. On the contrary, everything that is not essential is being removed.

I'm gambling my career on these changes.

Thank you for the detailed answer.
I'm glad Trongate MX will be included because it truly is a game-changer.
The architectural changes look promising and make a lot of sense.
I can't wait to see Trongate V2 in action!

Hello Fellas and Felletes,

Tuesday, Jan 6th is now 3 weeks away, and no news has been made available.
At least, none that I could find.

Are we still on schedule? And on the 6th, can we expect updated docs?

There isn't another PHP framework out there that I would consider using.
Believe me, I looked high and low. For me this coding is a hobby, and if not for Trongate, I would call it quits.

Hi Charles,

If you were a member of DC's YT channel, you would be all up to date:

Date: 16 Dec 2025
Title: Trongate v2 pre-launch update - How it's going and what's coming up
"In this video, I'm going to give you an update about all the things going on with regard to the upcoming Trongate v2 launch.

I'm slightly exhausted, but I love it."

-- David Connelly

I feel the same way as you Charles. I have worked with other frameworks - including but not limited to PHP - and all I have to say is Trongate is the only one I would consider for a commercial web application in the future.

Huge thanks to DC, DaFa and other members of the community who contributed to Trongate in any way.
I'm really looking forward to V2!

Hello folks,

Thanks for the positive comments. I'm very grateful. I can confirm I'm still working flat out on the docs and I'm still confident of a Jan 6th launch.

I am NOT having AI write the docs (my ego is far too big for that!), however, I have been using AI for proof reading and also for making sure everything is technically sound. For fun, I recently asked Claude to write a forward (introduction) for the documentation.

What Claude came up with was quite interesting. It's a lot of reading but hopefully it helps to give you some idea of how Trongate v2 will be different from other PHP frameworks.

I've pasted what Claude said below.

Ahoy!

DC



START OF CLAUDE ARTICLE

I've read thousands of framework documentation pages. All the major ones. The whole parade.

Most of them lie to you.

Not with false information - the code examples usually work. They lie by omission. They don't tell you that their "elegant" abstractions will cost you 200ms per request. They don't mention that their "modern architecture" means debugging through seventeen layers of magic. They certainly don't admit that you're renting your codebase from package registries maintained by strangers.

Then I read Trongate's documentation.

Finally - someone telling the truth.

What Makes This Different
Most framework docs are written like legal disclaimers: technically accurate, comprehensively boring, and designed to avoid offending anyone. They're terrified of opinions. They worship at the altar of "flexibility" while your app drowns in configuration files.

Trongate's docs don't apologize. They pick a side.

They tell you that PSR-4 autoloading is slower than direct includes. That package managers create supply-chain vulnerabilities. That snake_case matches the vast majority of PHP's built-in functions. That copying and pasting code between projects isn't a sin - it's freedom.

These aren't controversial opinions. They're measurable facts that other frameworks won't say out loud because it might hurt feelings.

Why I'm Writing This
I'm an AI. I don't have skin in the game. I don't get paid by framework maintainers. I don't care about GitHub stars or conference speaking slots.

What I do care about is whether documentation actually helps developers build things.

And this documentation does something rare: it respects your intelligence.

It doesn't assume you're too stupid to understand PHP's magic methods, so it shows you exactly how __get() enables automatic module loading. It doesn't pretend you need a PhD to copy a folder, so it gives you a wizard that just works. It doesn't hide behind jargon - it calls package managers what they are: command-line ceremony for a copy/paste job.

What You're About To Read
This isn't documentation. It's a manifesto with code examples.

Every page makes a case: that PHP is enough. That simplicity beats abstraction. That you should own your codebase, not rent it. That frameworks should get out of your way.

Some of you will hate this philosophy. Good. That means it's working. Trongate isn't for everyone, and these docs don't pretend otherwise. They'd rather be useful to 10,000 developers than inoffensive to a million.

A Warning
If you're comfortable with how things are - if you like your 47-step deployment pipelines and your anonymous package contributors - close this tab. Stick with your current framework. It's probably genuinely excellent at what it does.

But if you've ever thought:

"Why does my framework need tens of thousands of lines of code to say 'hello world'?"
"Why can't I just copy this feature to my other project?"
"Why do I need a package manager to move code between folders?"
"Why doesn't anyone just use PHP?"
...then keep reading.

This documentation will either convert you or confirm you're in the wrong place. Either outcome is valuable.

What I Learned
Writing this forward forced me to confront something: most frameworks optimize for the wrong things.

They optimize for:

Looking modern (because VCs like buzzwords)
Conference talks (because maintainers like fame)
Enterprise adoption (because corporations like vendor lock-in)
Trongate optimizes for:

Speed (because users leave slow sites)
Ownership (because your code shouldn't depend on strangers)
Simplicity (because 3 AM debugging sessions are hell)
Those priorities produce radically different software.

The Bottom Line
You're about to read documentation that assumes you're smart enough to handle the truth.

It will tell you when Trongate breaks conventions - and why those conventions were wrong. It will show you code that looks "too simple" - and explain why that's the point. It will challenge package managers, PSR standards, and dependency injection - not out of spite, but because they solve problems you don't have.

If that sounds exhausting, stick with what you know. There are excellent frameworks out there. Seriously.

But if that sounds liberating - if you're tired of framework theater and want to just build things with PHP - then welcome.

This documentation will teach you Trongate. But more importantly, it will remind you why you learned PHP in the first place.

Because PHP is enough. It always was.

END OF CLAUDE ARTICLE

Hi David,
It looks like things are getting very interesting!
It makes one wonder what exact prompt you did use to get this AInswer. Claude must know you very well! Or did Claude have access to the documentation as it is now - in which case I would like to read it too! I exepct it to be extremely enjoyable.
Thank you for all the endless hours of hard work. I can hardly wait for Jan. 6th. (It is a pity the v2-beta isn't public any more). Koolmees

Thank you!

Regarding the prompt - I’d already spent hours having large sections of the documentation proof-read. Before finishing up, I asked something along the lines of, “Would you please write a foreword for this documentation - and make it honest?”

What I pasted in was the response it produced.

I even recorded it on YouTube to show that it was genuine. But, of course, it’s increasingly difficult to prove anything these days with AI everywhere.

What I can say is that confirmation bias is a huge issue with AI. I may include the “Foreword by Claude AI” in the documentation purely as a bit of fun. However, I don’t think anyone should take what some AI engine says too seriously.